Bozell Column: Censoring the 'Anti-Gay' Viewpoint

The media elites have never been less interested in objectivity than they are right now on “gay marriage.” They don’t wear rainbow flags on their lapels when they appear on television, but the coverage speaks for itself.

Even liberals are admitting the obvious. The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ) studied a sample of almost 500 news stories from March to May and admitted “statements of support dominate” the daily narrative.

“The study lends credence to conservative charges that the nation's news media have championed the issue of same-sex marriage at the expense of objectivity," media reporter Brian Stelter asserted at The New York Times. "Others have argued that news organizations are right not to overly emphasize opposition to what many see as a core civil rights issue."

That’s very euphemistic. Some argue reporters are “not to overly emphasize” opposition? No, many liberals believe whoever still refuses to endorse "gay marriage" has as much moral authority as the Ku Klux Klan. Their voice should be ignored.

In many corners of the liberal media, the space for a social conservative to argue against “marriage equality” is vanishing before our eyes. It becomes twice as difficult the more and more anchors and reporters come out and declare themselves gay, and then the gay lobby expects those journalists to perform with perfect obedience to their agenda.

In their somewhat strange roulette-wheel method of analyzing a list of rotating media outlets depending on which day it is, PEJ analysts still found 47 percent of stories “included twice as many statements in support of same-sex marriage than in opposition. Less than a fifth of that number (9 percent) included more statements in opposition.” They found zero difference in tilt between “objective” news stories and opinion articles.

In their scattershot sample, the network evening and morning news shows never produced a story with more conservatives than leftists, and "all three of the major cable networks, for instance, had more stories with significantly more supportive statements than opposing, including Fox News."

The headline on their report is “News Coverage Conveys Strong Momentum for Same-Sex Marriage.” A very young or inexperienced media observer might argue that the momentum came before the media, that the media are only catching the recent wave of “justice.” That would ignore how the liberal media have favored the gay agenda for decades.

In recent years, the promotion of homosexuality has gone beyond the “news” programs and became heavily entrenched in network entertainment shows, with entire programs devoted to gay characters and their struggle to overcome the alleged ignorance and oppression of religious villains. This easily explains why so many young people are dramatically pro-gay marriage in the opinion polls.

So if you’re a religious conservative favoring traditional marriage, your media choices are between cultural poison and diluted cultural poison. The fierce debate within the media establishment is whether the social conservatives should be allowed to speak at all.

The official gay censorship lobbies – from the Orwellian-named “GLAAD” to the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association – define “fairness and accuracy” as being stories that try to scrape “fairness” away, treating opposition like used gum on someone’s shoe. GLAAD created what they call the “Commentator Accountability Project” designed to discourage reporters and TV bookers from booking “hate” guests.

“Progressive” censors have confronted MSNBC’s Chris Matthews in public and urged him to stop booking Family Research Council president Tony Perkins because of his “hate speech,” like calling gay activists “vile.” The left-wing lobby calling itself “Faithful America” tried to take out an ad on MSNBC urging Matthews to keep Perkins off TV: “People of faith are speaking out, demanding MSNBC stop hosting hate.”

Their argument was based on the fact that the leftist Southern Poverty Law Center officially designated FRC and other conservative Christian organizations as “hate groups.” The SPLC designation became for them a handy blacklist to instruct the liberal media on which guests to ban. For unhinged (but unsuccessful) shooter Floyd Corkins, the SPLC created a hit list of people to kill at the FRC and two other conservative outfits.

To quote GLAAD censor Aaron McQuade, “Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from the consequences of speech.” If they prevail, the “consequences” of speaking in opposition to the gay lobby equals zero bookings. In their dream land, every “news” segment looks like the usual MSNBC “Lean Forward” gay segment where everyone embraces the equality and fluidity of “sexual preference.”

But they’re not censors, they insist.

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